Dr. Halkano Abdi Wario (Egerton University, Kenya) is organizing his preparatory workshop for finalizing his application for a Volkswagen Foundation Senior Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship. Having succeeded in the first round of reviews, Volkswagen Foundation is financing this Workshop to give an opportunity to collecting feedback for his project proposal. Anybody interested to learn more about applications for fellowships at Volkswagen Foundation and is willing to give an input to Dr. Wario's project proposal is most welcome to participate. Please register until April 12, 2016, by sending an e-mail to Dr. Britta Frede (britta.frede@gmx.net), Postdoctoral Fellow at BGSMCS, cooperating as German Postdoc partner of Dr. Wario in a current Volkswagen Foundation Junior Humanities Fellowship.

Abstract of project proposal:

In October 2011, following abductions at the Coast by Somalia’s Al-Shabaab militia, the Kenya’s army made unilateral incursion of Somalia oustering it from Kismayu and later joined the African Union Mission in Somalia to support transitional government in Mogadishu. In retaliation, Al-Shabaab conducted several attacks including a siege on Nairobi’s Westgate Shopping Mall and Garissa University killings. As security measures are inadequate to address emergent youth radicalization and recruitment in Kenya, faith-based counter-narratives have emerged to make ‘jihad less appealing’ and delegitimize propaganda of militant groups. A promising initiative include BRAVE (Building Resilience against Violent Extremism)’s Jihad for All supported by several Islamic organizations and rely on ‘ilm as foundation for de-radicalization. The study explores dynamics of religious texts interpretation by de-radicalization activists, examines works used in the tailored knowledge production, explores online campaigns, material aesthetics and performativity of counter-narrativity on social media and analyze related public lectures and television advertisements. Field work will be in Nairobi’s Majengo and Eastleigh and Mombasa’s Majengo and Old Town. The interdisciplinary study informed by Talal Asad's discursive traditions applies text analysis, ethnography, interviews, focus group discussions and biographical narratives and plan to produce a monograph on contextualized knowledge production in Kenya in the era of ‘War on Terror’ and collaborative works with project stakeholders.